The Coast of Galicia
by EtincelleD'OR
Summary: Robert's eyes veer downwards and sideways to the Dowager Countess. "I disapprove of their extravagant performance as much as you do." She says, angling the end of her cane in his direction, "But if that young man is called up in the New Year, he won't have another chance to leap around like a whirling dervish."
1. Chapter 1

_The Coast of Galicia_

Finally, a Downton fic. It took me long enough!

Note: This is a story involving a dance, and I think it's nice to listen to the music when trying to envision how a dance may proceed, so below is the link to the title's namesake, _The Coast of Galicia_, played by Máiréad Nesbitt of Celtic Woman. Also, before you ask, I have no idea when this piece was written, or if it had even been written in the early 1900s, but it wasn't for lack of research, I did try. Galicia is actually the north-west-most part of Spain, directly north of Portugal, and, as I was surprised to learn, has a rich Celtic history.

It's youtube dot com forward slash:

_**wat ch?v=s25RK iuf8Sc**_

* * *

_The Servants' Ball, 1916._

* * *

Tom Branson has only two aspirations tonight. The first, is to attempt to maintain his composure and not succumb to the temptation of giving the next officer who looks at him _like that_ a good and thorough pasting in full view. The nasty gobshites have been sneering at him ever since they were lucky enough to have arrived at the Abbey, and oddly enough, none of them are in a hurry to leave. He continually reminds himself to let them go and get themselves blown up on the front if they really want to, the Germans might save him the effort. The second aspiration, of course, is to secure a dance with Lady Sybil. It is a Servants' Ball, and as of yet she hasn't danced with one member of the staff. The fifth dance is drawing to a close, he knows purely from observation that she is booked for the first six dances, and the seventh belongs to him, he is certain.

The decision had been made to go ahead with the Servants' Ball, and to include all of the in-patients that were well enough to be out of bed in the festivities. It had turned out to be a much bigger enterprise than the family had imagined, the food and wine alone had been hard enough to come by, and what was traditionally a quiet private event between the Crawleys and the staff had become an out-of-scale party. This is the fourth Christmas that Branson has spent in Yorkshire, and the previous Servants' Balls he has avoided like the plague. He can dance, but not, he imagines, in any way that would be considered appropriate. He doesn't know that Sybil had missed him at every single one, except of course, for this one.

Pushing his way through the mass of people, he doesn't so much as feel the returned shoves or the kicks at his ankles as he wades through the groups of officers, holding his breath at times to avoid the stench of their cigarette smoke. He hasn't spoken to her properly since he dropped her off in York a month ago, apart from the journey home again this afternoon, and that was all formalities and manners and stealing glimpses in the mirrors. He couldn't bring himself to talk about what he'd asked of her, and her silence hadn't exactly encouraged him to. Every single year, he has passed up the opportunity to dance with her, and now that he wants to more than ever, she might not have him. But Branson knows from experience that if you don't ask, you don't get. He approaches Sybil just in time to hear another officer say;

"Lady Sybil, may I have the seventh?"

A growl boils inside his throat and he quickens his stomping pace, "_Before she answers... before she answers_..."

"Lady Sybil is dancing the seventh with me." He says before he can stop himself, boldly, too boldly, forgetting all formalities, manners and titles, as he gently takes her arm in his. Sybil's eyes dart to his, and then back to the officer, who is doing a bloody good job of looking innocently disappointed.

Sybil is glaring furiously. "I..." but Branson isn't budging, and this is quickly becoming awkward, "I did promise him, I am terribly sorry Terry."

The young officer smiles politely. "Maybe later then." He says, "Enjoy yourself milady."

Branson waits until the officer is out of earshot. "_Terry_?" he mutters.

"There's no need to be so rude, he's only just had his right arm out of a sling." She fumes, "And he's very pleasant."

"He's been lookin' you up and down all evening." Branson scoffs, "The longer his hands are tied up the better if you ask me."

"_Branson_!" she chides, her gaze warning him from making another easily overheard comment as she steers him away towards a quieter corner, "I'm not entirely sure this is the best idea." She murmurs quietly into his ear, leaning in only as close as she dares, but still the masculine smell of his shaving cream stirs her senses. It is a crisp, fresh, musky scent, and so much a preferable alternative to the thick haze of smoke that she will never become accustomed to, no matter how hard she tries.

There has always been something about his face, she thinks to herself, maybe it is something to do with his fiery Gaelic blood, she has no idea, but what most men need one thousand words to describe, Branson can illustrate in a single fleeting expression. These faces engrave themselves onto her mind and send shivers down her spine whenever reconjured, shivers that she cannot decide whether or not she likes or hates, that cause her heart to thud and heat to rise from her cheeks. She takes a breath, and at this moment she knows, that she will never forget this one for as long as she lives.

His blue eyes fall to the floor for a moment, and when he looks up again, his face has fallen, he fails to meet her eye-contact, his lips are pursed together in a line of hurt rather than the one of anger that just was. When he can finally bring himself to meet her gaze again, the pupils of his eyes are dilated, the irises turbulent seas of hopes and dreams.

"_Please, milady_..." he breathes, "_Just one dance, then I swear I'll leave you alone._"

She feels herself break under his whim. Little over a month ago this man had asked her to marry him, wanting neither her title nor her money, and knowing it could never be. She has already hurt him once, without even trying. She doesn't want to hurt him again. He doesn't deserve it, she thinks, he never meant to feel like he does. Maybe tonight, she would let him have his dance, let him run away in his head, just for a few joyous minutes, it is harmless and it changes nothing in any case. And maybe, just maybe, she can run too, and forget for a moment that she ever told him 'no'.

"Just one dance." She agrees, and his wonderful mischievous grin coaxes a small smile onto her face.

Suddenly, he is alive like a little Irish firecracker ready to burst out of his skin. "Wait here, I'll be two seconds!" he says, before dashing off in the direction of the band. She watches as he leans in and whispers into the ear of the balding and moustached conductor, who gives him a chiding glare through piggy-like eyes, but nods all the same. Oh Lord, what on Earth has he asked them to play? She closes her eyes and sends up a short silent prayer that Branson isn't about to embarrass himself – or her.

"Lady Sybil?"

She turns. It is the sixth dance, come to claim his reservation. Outwardly she smiles politely, but inwardly she is screaming. Already? Again? She hasn't sat down since the time she got up at six o' clock this morning, and the balls of her feet are burning as if she were walking on white hot coals. As she takes his arm and follows him to the floor, she decides that she may feign a headache for the eighth.

Branson scowls as she twirls about the floor opposite this officer. How he wants to punch him in the mouth. What will this man, or any of these rich men do for Sybil, should her parents sell her off to the highest bidder? They'll love her dowry, her name and her body, but they won't love her. When they have the money to have any mistress, any prostitute they so desire... Would they treat her half as well as he would? Would they love her half so much as he did now? There is a whole other world behind the marital bedroom door, the gruesome truths of which he is sure Sybil is completely innocent. It is one thing to know about the mechanics, it is another to know of the pain, the forcefulness and sometimes the violence that he often overhears graphically described when there are only young men in the back of the motorcar. Now he understands why women are told to lie back and think of Britain. He always wants to slam on the brakes and send them hurtling through the windscreen, his powerlessness making him feel sick to the core. His gloved fingers tighten around the steering wheel to the point of pain... What he would do to take her away from that...

He wants to check himself; _"What right have you to be jealous?"_ He wants to tell himself, _"She ain't yours to be jealous over."_ But, he can't, quite, make himself do it. It warped and moulded itself into; _"She's mine and don't you ever forget it."_

Christ the English music is dull. This is supposed to be an informal event for peat's sake. It's dull and dreary and lacks any life whatsoever. Not unlike the people. Branson masks a smile, and only hopes to God that Sybil likes the music he's asked them to play.

The dance slows, Sybil smiles into the shoulder of the sixth officer and allows herself to wince slightly at the pain in her feet. She doesn't notice it during the quicker, more intricate steps, but this is sheer agony. Over his shoulder, she notices Branson smirking, and wonders what in God's name he could be sniggering about. Was this next dance going to be some kind of humiliation for turning him down in York? No – Branson wouldn't do that, he didn't have it in him, not towards her in any case, she thinks to herself. She applauds the band as the couples disperse into the crowd again, and looks for Branson. If she stands still for too long she won't be able to move again. A voice comes from behind her.

"Lady Sybil, might I...?"

"I'm taken, I am sorry." She says, in the vague direction it came from. In truth she has no idea as to which of the many uniformed men it was that spoke. Branson's sharp bright green one stood out in comparison to the dusky military green, and she briefly allows herself to entertain the fact that he is easily one of the most handsome young men in the room. Her eyes fall to her glove hands clasped in front of her. Will her parents ever find her a kind, young man, who kindles her interests, with whom she can talk for hours on end, and – she forces herself to admit - who adores her, like Branson does?

Not likely.

His smile as she reaches him stirs something, and for a moment, the pain in her feet it gone. Lord, she was looking forward to sitting down and taking her shoes off. If it were not Branson offering her his arm with a curt 'milady', Branson who was leading her to the floor once more, she would have called it a night there and then.

She and he both can feel the eyes upon them as they take their positions. Obviously not because she is dancing with him, this is after all the Servants' Ball, but because it is Branson. 'The conchie chauffeur', she's overheard him called. He hasn't been called up yet, she knows, but it's only a matter of time. And when he is, it will either be a prison sentence, or a death sentence. And she will never see him again.

The musicians have rearranged themselves, so that the conductor is now sitting down and one violinist is now standing in front of the others. Several soldiers who see Branson shake their heads at their partners and decline to dance, leaving Anna, Daisy, Mrs. Hughes and Edith alone. The crowd falls quiet as seething soldiers dissolve invisibly back into it, and a sea of whispers flows into Sybil's ears, but Branson appears to be ignoring it. The violinist draws his bow to make the first note, and Sybil sees Anna pursing her lips slightly. She sees her looking around and starting to move, but then she stops, and Sybil doesn't see why at first, until she sees Mr. Bates' black coat emerge from the sea of green and Anna's face descend into a smile of relief. Not long after, William, not so visible in his uniform, steps forward as well, seemingly unaware of the flicker of Daisy's eyes towards Thomas, who no attempt whatsoever to move from where he stood.

Sybil does not notice Matthew shaking his head and moving to Edith's side, or Mrs. Hughes slipping away as invisibly as possible. Branson's one hand lies lightly on her waist, the other holds hers as if he was afraid he might crush it. Their bodies are so close that Branson can't think to place his feet correctly.

"I know this song..." she whispers into his ear, "It was playing on the radio when I came to order the motor."

Branson smiles fondly at the memory of the slow strokes of the violin and of Sybil standing in the garage doorway, fresh and beautiful, tilting her head sideways to the foreign sound. "_It sounds Spanish_." She had said.

"_It is." He replied, making a note of her travel request in the timetable. "But you've not heard t'best of it yet milady."_

_She smiled so brightly that he thought his insides might explode, and began to shrink away from behind the door. _

"_No no no wait!" he said, causing her to pause in her tracks, "You've gotta hear t'best of it!"_

_He made a beeline for the radio, an ancient dusty old thing that he had found in the wardrobe in his cottage when he first went to unpack his clothes, and after several months worth of tinkering, had managed to restore to working order. He turned the volume up as loud as he dared as the piece shifted into a more energetic and bouncy rhythm, the violin was joined by the voice of the flute. He had seen this played in Dublin many times before in pubs and at Céilís, and this was always the part where the fiddler begins to dance, with a skip in his stride and a flick in his toe. _

"_Hold your horses milady." He said, "It's in a minute."_

_Smiling again, Sybil leant against the frame of the door and listened. The section of the piece ends on a long note and for a split-second she thinks it has ended, until the violin picks up out of nowhere, in a tune so breathtakingly quick and merry that she wonders how any violinist can move so fast as to play it. _

_She blinks and her mouth curls. "But this is Irish."_

"_It's Gaelic."_

"_You just it was Spanish."_

"_It is." He said, his foot tapping against the stone floor in a fast four-time beat. _

"_I don't follow."_

"_It's called _'The Coast of Galicia'." _He explained, "Galicia is the north-western-most part of Spain, it's famous for its unlikely Celtic history."_

"_Like Brittany in France?"_

"_Yep. They're almost as good with a fiddle as we Irish are I'd say."_

"_Is there a difference between a fiddle and a violin?"_

"_Aye." He said, "When you buy it, it's a fiddle. When you sell it, it's a violin."_

Suddenly, Branson is flying. He isn't sure what his feet are doing, or what the rest of him is doing, all he knows is that the rules simply don't fit, and that as the music flows through him and pulls him like a puppet into a less and less formal Céilí-like dance that fills him with both joy and a powerful yearning for home. Sybil is with him all the way, she matches his steps, and she is smiling, and laughing, dear God she's laughing! All eyes are on them, her family, his peers, a quite considerable portion of the British Army, and Branson doesn't care. He hasn't had fun like this since he left home to come to this godforsaken little country.

Robert's pupils dilate ever so slightly as he sets eyes upon his youngest daughter's dance with the chauffeur. "What on Earth...?" he mutters under his breath, "Is my daughter really going to make a complete and utter fool of herself in front of all these people?"

"Oh I don't doubt it." Robert's eyes veer downwards and sideways to the Dowager Countess, who is sitting on a chair behind him, her cane leaning against it as she haughtily readjusts the dead fox around her neck, "I disapprove of their extravagant performance as much as you do." She says, angling the end of her cane in his direction, "But if that young man is called up in the New Year, he won't have another chance to leap around like a whirling dervish."

Robert rolls his eyes and Violet barely harnesses her reaction. "He's Irish dear, you know they can't help it."

The violinist is alternating between the G and E strings in first and third position respectively, the bow flying so fast that neither it nor the movement of the violinist's arm is visible. The main melody picks up again with the soft beat of the drums, and Sybil marvels at how the piano and the second strings bring the piece to life, as she knows it draws near to its end. Branson's face is a picture of pure joy and elation, his eyes sparkling so vivaciously that Sybil finds it hard to tear her own away. She twirls away from him, the hem of her dress flying, holding his hand tightly as the recoil in their muscles pulls her back and she spins back into his arms. It ends on a high up-bow note, unusual, she notes, for a piece of the time. Branson is supporting her waist and back and leaning over her slightly, like in the romantic dances but at a very minor angle. She is clutching his shoulders, they are both a little out of breath, and both a little too close.

People start to applaud the band and the violinist, whose relieved face that he has played a hugely difficult piece correctly seems to relax the atmosphere in the room, and Sybil realises that for the first time this evening, the pain in her feet is gone. He takes advantage of their closeness and whispers into her ear...

"_You've got blood on you milady_."

Not what she expected to hear, Sybil's eyes fill with horror. "_What_?" she gasps, "_Where_?"

"_On your neck on the left just by the hairline..._"

Branson gently tips her upright again and steps back from her. They share a bow and a courtesy, and Sybil is gone. Branson isn't sure exactly what it is that possesses him to follow her, but he does so, and steps outside of the saloon to find her crooning into a large mirror in the foyer.

"Damn it I thought I got it all off..." she says, trying to rotate her neck at a funny angle in order to see it, "Is it very obvious?"

"No milady." He replies, "No it's very faint."

"Can you help me get it off?"

"Come downstairs milady." He says, jerking his head towards the entrance to the servant's hall, "I'll be damned if I'm seen walking upstairs with you."

" 'Seen' being the operative word." She mutters as she descends the stone staircase. The very Irish "Oi!" that came from behind her draws a chuckle out of her.

The servant's hall is freezing cold, with thin window panes and little insulation, the fires had been out for hours. She hears his footsteps behind her and raises her hands to her goose-pimpling arms.

"I never realised how cold it was down here." She says, watching her breath condense into clouds in front of her face as the sound of her own footsteps echoes back into her ears off the stone floor and walls.

"It's not cold during the day time, when Mrs. Patmore's cookin' and there's people bustlin' about." He says, before adding jokingly from over his shoulder, "And we are also in the habit of wearing sleeves."

He pulls a clean teacloth from a hook behind the wine cellar door, and begins to run it under the kitchen sink tap. "Sorry it's cold milady."

"For God's sakes Branson, I can take a little cold water." She says, as she steps out of her shoes and closes her eyes in relief as the cold stone flags cool the fire in her feet.

His eyes dart to her feet as she removes her shoes, and then back to her face. "And cold feet as well milady?"

She doesn't flinch as he rubs the stain in gentle strokes so as not to disrupt her beautifully coiffed hair. "There aren't words to describe the pain." She says, "I haven't sat down all day." Thinking for a moment, she adds "It was worth it though."

"Then you must." He says, pausing to pull a chair out from under the servants' dining table, "Please."

She sits, and immediately the pain eases. The quiet dabbing of the teatowel was cold but soothing, and she loses her eyes to the thick-falling snow outside with a shiver. How do you walk away from a hospital at the end of the day and carry on like all you have seen never happened? This man's blood had covered her hands, arms and apron, had splattered onto her face, and no amount of carbolic acid seemed to be able to shift it. It lingers for longer than it is visible and if she raises her bare hands to her face, she can still smell it there, engrained into her skin, that sickly metallic odour. She has picked her thickest gloves for tonight, and hoped that through two baths, no one could smell or see the signs of what is now her everyday life. There are several men on the ward recovering from shrapnel removals, several amputations due to gangrene and trench-foot, horrendous infections contracted through the tiniest of cuts. At least three-quarters of these men are not expected to survive the night. The supply of morphine is running so low that they have been denied it, because it would be deemed to be wasting drugs that might save others. Instead, they are given a bottle of ale, if they are capable of drinking, while they wait to die. When they do eventually die, the bodies of men that died for their country are either incinerated or thrown into communal graves. A tear runs down her cheek. She isn't as she remembers anymore. She keeps trying to forget it all, to pretend that life is as it was before, that none of this is happening, but it just isn't possible. She used to be able to relax and enjoy these occasions, to laugh and dance lightly with free shoulders. Now she is a bundle of frayed nerves, and Branson... How could she ever let him spirit her away from all that tonight?

"There, all done."

"He was a bleed-out." She says suddenly, not taking her eyes off the cascades of white behind the window. She has been trying to hold it in all evening, and it won't stay there any more. The man whose blood it was. Branson is the last person she should be telling, she knows, any more heart-felt ramblings between them will only encourage him, which is exactly what she wants to avoid. But, she thinks, even though this is probably taking advantage of his feelings for her, at the very least, Branson will care. He stops, his eyes rising to her face as his heartstrings jerk. "He was only in for an appendectomy." Her voice dries in her throat into a shrivelled croak, "The surgeon accidentally hit an artery." She wets her lip as a single tear rolls down her cheek, "He had five small children."

Branson can't speak. He doesn't know what to say. Surgeons are people, they make mistakes, but for an otherwise healthy young man to die an even more pointless death than suffered by his comrades stirs a hot anger inside him at the War. If the surgeon had slept in the forty-eight hours prior to the surgery, not overrun into the floor with cases he couldn't just ignore, five children might still have a father.

"Don't cry..." he says, offering her a clean handkerchief from his pocket.

"You must think me such a fool." She sniffs, wiping the tears away, "I'm going to have to get used to this."

His voice is soft and deep with emotion. "I don't think anybody ever gets used to this, milady." He says, and she hears the creaking of a nearby chair as he sits next to her, "They just learn to hide it better."

"I don't know how anyone here can celebrate..." she says, "With all these men dying every day... They say it's for moral but I don't see how it can be..."

"It's for the moral of the people not fightin', rather than that of those who are." He says, "The easiest way to forget something is throw a feckin' party." He realises how loud his voice has become and he mentally checks himself, "I'm sorry milady."

"Don't be sorry for being right." She says, "I know you're not really sorry."

His smile and stifled laugh quickly fades into the silence of the kitchen. "Milady..." he says, biting his lip as his words refuse to take legible forms, "I am sorry, about what I said in York..."

"Branson..."

His jaw flexes and his mouth draws into a tight line. "It was inappropriate of me and I should never have said it." He says quietly, "Please forget I ever did."

"But you were so brave to say it." She replies, "I can never forget that."

He is caught in her stare like a struggling fly in a web. "I just wanted to say..." he starts, "That if I get called up in the New Year, all I would wish, that you and I might part amicably, like it was before I made a right pig's ear of it."

Sybil holds back another tear. And what if he was called up? What if all the circumstances keeping them apart never had time to change? What if she would never have the chance to take a leap of faith and change her mind? To marry a man that loved her deeply?

"You didn't make a pig's ear of it..."

The chair legs squeak against the floor and he is standing at the window, leaning against the edge of the sink, staring out into the night.

"I won't die for a country that won't give my own its Independence." He scowls, "I won't do it..."

Sybil treads softly over the kitchen to stand beside him, her hand lightly touching his arm through her silk glove. "_Can't we just pretend it never happened_?" he asks her, his heart ready to burst as she gazes up at him. An odd curiosity takes hold of Sybil, once she has never felt before and one that she is sure will do her no good. How thoroughly stupid and cruel of her would it be to allow him to get his hopes up? In a war of all times? It would be far kinder for her to leave him be, to not speak to him, to walk out and give him a chance to fall out of love again.

"_Branson_..." she says, her voice falling from her lips as a whisper, "_You are a dear friend, and I don't want to lose you..."_

Sybil feels his entire body freeze rigid against hers as she draws herself up, and slowly, ever so slowly, presses a kiss to his cheek. It is simple, chaste, and sets off a firework inside him. A tear spills down his skin and onto hers as the kiss lingers. He hears her breath as she draws away, and marvels at her closeness. Their noses brush briefly, his eyes fall closed and he slips away into a trance-like haze as something not unlike magnetism pulls their lips together.

His response is minimal, fleeting, sometimes there, sometimes not, as if he is so plain terrified that he cannot make a clear decision. She wonders for a moment if she is doing it wrong, or if he is about to tell her that this is wrong, until she feels him move beneath her lips as his begin to thaw. When she pulls back for a moment, she hears a barely audible whimper escape him.

"_Branson..._"

"_Tom..."_ he whispers, his eyes longing and his chest heaving, "_Call me Tom... Please_..."

"_Tom..._"

He so nearly comes there and then as she murmurs his name against his mouth. The sound is rich and low, so quiet that it is almost a whisper, and in it he hears love, longing and needing, if only for a split second. The thought that she might just love him, long for him and need him as he does her causes him to shudder and he presses his mouth to hers again. Oh God this should not be happening, should not have happened, it is wrong on so many levels he does not even dare to think about. Simple, chaste kisses and hushed words shouldn't induce a euphoria like this, he is certain, and he inwardly braces himself as the full force of his desires seize his body. Everything he feels for her, deep throes of need and utter love, all washes over him like a tide, gradually easing the original shock into nothing. Sybil runs her gloved hands through his hair and allows herself to sigh into him. He shouldn't have kissed her again, and she should be pushing him away and leaving. If this isn't encouraging him, Sybil doesn't know what is. This isn't the message she wants to send, the consequences aren't worth thinking about. But the truth is, she just doesn't care. Not now. Not here. He is more than any man she has ever met, he is everything she wants, he is warm and passionate, and kissing him is sheer ecstasy. The ghost-like touch of his hands sends thrills up her spine and colour into her cheeks, and she begins to massage him in a similar way, his muscles hardening at her touch to the extent of aching. She runs her hands over as much of him as she can, her head reeling at the sounds she can so easily coax from him. He is constantly trying to prevent his body from writhing, sometimes succeeding, sometimes not. She has never seen him so vulnerable before, one kiss to a certain spot on his skin and she can feel him almost shaking. He cannot remember a time that he has ever felt so weak that he has to concentrate just to maintain his grip around her waist. Silence is impossible, soft subdued whimpers and moans float in an air around them warmed by passion. She gasps, the feeling of his hands, his mouth, his tongue make her ache with pleasure in embarrassing places, and she wonders briefly what she could do to him if she were to touch the less innocent parts of his body. She admits to herself silently that she yearns to touch more of him, and for him to touch more of her, and all of a sudden, some of the world's greatest romances, even some of the world's most well-known mistakes, begin to make sense to Sybil. Even now, she feels she understands a little of Mary's foolishness, of Edith's bitterness, of Lavinia's sadness and of Anna's happiness, as he brings out passion in her that she thought only existed in novels.

He kisses her lips again, although this time it is softer and less urgent, and then she sees him peering down at her, wiping strands of hair out of here face with a fondness she is sure she is not worthy of. She closes her eyes and lets her fingers trace patterns on his back as he kisses her tenderly just below her ear and slowly makes his way down her neck. He is sure that he has died and gone to heaven, his body is crying out for more, but instead his concern is not his pleasure but hers. Thinking exactly what he would do to her on their wedding night makes his head spin. And yes, he tells himself, there would be a wedding night, he would be her husband or die trying.

"_I love you_..." he murmurs into her skin between kisses.

"_It can never happen, Tom_..."

"_But it's happening now_..."

"_It should never have_..."

"_Dear God I know it_..."

Sybil, finally mustering all the strength she has, steps backwards from him, and is instantly cold again. "_We need to stop this_..." she says, "It can never be. No matter what we wish." He turns away to look out of the window again, having never felt so cold as he does now. He did this to himself, he flew too close to the Sun, was burned, and now he had to fall back to Earth.

"I'm sorry..." she says, "I should never have..."

"Nor I." He interrupts her, not wanting her to finish the sentence.

"I didn't mean to make this any more awkward..."

"Nor I."

She clasps her hands together in guilt. "Although I see I have done."

"Let me guess." He says, once again leaning against the sink with his back to her in the dim moonlight, "This changes nothing."

"It _can't_." She emphasises, "It doesn't matter what we want..."

"Well it should!"

Sybil's head is turned. Yes, she thinks, never was there anything more right in this world. "_Can _we, pretend that this never happened? Go back to the way it was before?"

Something inside him rips, but his exterior remains calm, and knowing. "This never happened." He says, as he turns on his heel, the leather scuffing against the stone, and numbly walks past her for the stairs. "Forgive me, milady."

If he goes to war, he will be killed. If he becomes a conscientious objector, he will go to prison, or face a firing squad. What will she say when she knows? How could she love him then? Either way, how could he ever stay free, or even alive for long enough to be with her? He loves her more than the cause by now, much more, and all he wants to do is run, away from here, to take her as far away from the war as possible.

But she'll never come.

And for as long as she'll never follow, he will never leave.


	2. Notice

Hi all, this isn't a chapter, sorry to disappoint. All my Downton fics are oneshots, as I've found I haven't got the time for multi-chapter stories anymore, sorry

What I wanted to say is that all your lovely reviews have inspired me to finish another Sybil/Branson fic, _Women of Britain_, which has just gone live. Hope you all enjoy it!

EtincelleD'OR


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